Billy Joel (following in the footsteps of Madonna?) is the latest singer to sign a deal to write children’s books. According to Joel: “Reassuring children that they are not alone or could be abandoned is very important for their well-being.”

As long as he lets someone else drives on the book tour.

The first line of the AP story about the publishing deal might put a bit of undue pressure on the Piano Man: “Billy Joel has agreed to write two children’s books for Scholastic, the U.S. publisher of the Harry Potter novels.” That’s like saying that someone is going to create a sitcom pilot much in the way Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld did.

Davenetics by Dave Pell

Welcome to Dave Pell's Davenetics, the Official Blog of the Next Five Minutes. Dave is an old school blogger. It all started with Davenetics, but then grew into a suite of blogs and brands including Electablog (politics) and NextDraft (newsletter). These days, Dave almost all of his blogging at Tweetage Wasteland, a look at the realtime web that is syndicated by Forbes, NPR, Gizmodo and others. Dave is also the founder of Rollyo and Addictomatic, an investor/adviser for several start-ups, and the husband of Gina Pell.